Victim Veermani Rai, 35, was posted as junior engineer in the irrigation department at Hajipur, headquarters of Vaishali district.

Junior engineer Veermani Rai was shot dead at Sonepur when he was on way to Patna.(Representative photo )

Unidentified criminals shot dead a Bihar government junior engineer in north Bihar’s Saran district on Monday evening.

Police said motorcycle-borne criminals intercepted the car of Veermani Rai, 35, at Sonepur, 21 km north of Patna, and gunned him down at around 6 pm.

Rai was posted as junior engineer in the irrigation department at Hajipur, headquarters of adjoining Vaishali district, the police added.

The incident took place between Shivbachan Chowk and Marachhia Devi Chowk on the busy National Highway (NH)-19 that links Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh with Patna, when Rai was on way to his home in Kurji locality of the state capital from Hajipur, 2.5 km from the site of the crime.

“Rai used to return to Patna every day after office hours,” the police added.

The police said Rai died on the spot after a bullet pierced through the car windowpane and hit him on the chest. A pellet also hit his cellphone, kept in the pocket of his shirt, they said. His body was taken out of the car after breaking the windowpanes as the doors were locked from inside, the police said, adding that two live cartridges and some empty cartridges were recovered from the car.

Saran superintendent of police Harikishore Rai said: “Our team is investigating the case. It could be a case of land dispute.”

Sonepur sub-divisional police officer Pankaj Sharma said a team had been set to solve the case through scientific investigation.

Sharma said the victim’s elder brother Manoj, a railway employee, had told police that Rai was earlier thrashed by some unidentified persons in an incident of road rage.

Meanwhile, a pall of gloom descended on the Patna residence of Rai, who had got married in 2016. “The murder proves that criminals have no fear of the law,” said Dharmendra Kumar, a close relative of Rai.

Earlier in the day, six motorcycle-borne criminals shot dead a guard of ATM cash van and seriously injured his colleague in a bid to snatch Rs 1.90 crore at Garkha in Saran district.

The deceased guard was identified as Santosh Singh. The incident occurred near Mehian four-lane overbridge around 3pm.